After completing an activation of two new parks on April 13th, my RI park count increased to 40, earning the Platinum Activator Award
With the advent of nice weather, the number of outdoor things that have been taking up time have reduced the amount of time I can spend on POTA, but the goal still remains to do 50 of the state’s parks by year end.
It’s nice to have a hobby like Amateur Radio in retirement as it can keep you very busy. There is always something new to do, or you might rotate through various aspects of the hobby as your interest comes and goes.
Such is the case with my local HotSpot, which went off air late last fall following some unintentional renovations to the shack (like so many hams, my gear is in the furnace room). I finally got around to setting things up again, but once I got things going I quickly discovered that my version 3.4.17 software was out of date, and DMR was no longer working.
The DMR issue turned out to be a need for a personal password to be setup with Brandmeister (theyve been having issues with folks spoofing callsigns using the default password). Even after doing that, things still didn’t work, so I took the steps to upgrade the firmware to version 4.1.4. That required setting up a complete new microSD card with the latest image. It was easy to do with the help of Toshen KE0FHS’s excellent website. Rather than try to restore things from my backup (I did have one), I figured I would just set things up from scratch. Within an hour or two I had things running. In addition, I enabled YSF, which I had turned off.
I now remember why I turned off YSF — the FCS002/90 Americalink is VERY busy, so it is back off for now, but at least it works!
I have been using DXLabs for my log for years (after giving up on HDR for many reasons). My Elecraft K3s was the first radio I used (I love its full break-in on CW). My Yaesu FTDX-101MP followed quickly (fairly typical COM port setup). But I never added in my FlexRadio 6600M until today.
The process turned out to be very simple and completely documented in Dave’s excellent Wiki. I just made sure to start SmartSDR running, then followed the instructions. Within a couple of minutes, I was connected.
I immediately noted that the sensitivity of the Flex dropped — like another radio had been added (and in fact, that’s what happened). I shut down SmartSDR (killing the panadapter on the PC screen) and everything was back to “normal”. After that point I didn’t have to restart SDR, even as I started and stopped DXLabs or power-cycled the PC. I haven’t tried shutting the FlexRadio down yet (bitter experience has taught me that shutting the Flex down can sometimes do nasty things, like corrupt an internal SD card), so perhaps the SDR software needs to be running to establish the initial connection, and isn’t required subsequently (at least for DXCommander and DXKeeper’s purposes).
I decided to sign up for the CWops CW Academy. They have small, instructor led classes that meet for an hour twice a week, for eight weeks. In addition, there is an expectation of an hour of practice sending/receiving each day, so it is pretty intense, but a lot of fun. My instructor, Joe KK5NA, makes it enjoyable and fresh.
With all that CW practice, I have radios and keyers all over the house now (bedroom, den, and of course shack). I’ve started to run out of paddles. I broke into a box that I received 7 years ago – A 100th Anniversary ARRL Commemorative Vibroplex paddle to hook up to my Flex-6600M.
I’ve always been rather ham-fisted when it comes to sending Morse Code. Not so much that I squeeze the paddles so much they bend, but rather I knock the paddle all over the table. It’s hard to send a “5” when the paddle is moving! Some of that is age and some of it is lack of practice. After acquiring a UR5CDX CT73 MB-L, “travel” paddle, the problem was amplified due to its light weight.
A friend of mine, Bruce NJ3K, had discovered DXengineering’s “Paddle Pad” and suggested I try one out. They come in two sizes (the photo below is the larger size). Both the bottom and top of the pad is sort of sticky (but not in a messy way). Sure enough, when I put the paddle on the pad, it no longer moves. Thank you Bruce!
The company that makes the sticky pad for DXengineering is HandStands, which sells through Amazon and other dealers for about the same price (without the pretty DXengineering logo of course).
This past Tuesday, my wife and I (and our lab Jaclyn) headed out to the three RI parks furthest from our house: Simmons Mill, Sapowet Marsh, and Haines State Park. It was about an hour to the furthest one, and we were back home about six hours later. One station, WB4KTU, Loyce in Alabama, managed to work me in all three parks. Another hat-trick!
With 36 parks completed, I’m in position 45 (Top 5%) for 2021, and in the top 7% since the program began.
From time to time, some beautiful work or art, that is also a Morse key, catches my fancy. I recently purchased a small dual-lever paddle from UR5CDX, for about $150 including shipping (surprisingly fast too — about a week via international post).
At home I go big and heavy to deal with my ham-fist which knocks keys all about the desktop. But when traveling (like POTA), size/weight becomes an issue. I haven’t used this key on the road yet, but I fully expect I’m going to have to hold it with one hand while sending as I do other small keys. That said, it’s almost too pretty to use.
UR5CDX CT73 MBL (the “B” means Brass, and the “L” means smaller/lighter base)
After completing 30 unique park activations yesterday, my “Gold Activator” certificate arrived today:
I continue to gather metrics on activations. I noted in doing three activations yesterday that my old Toughbook CF-30 laptop had used 30% of it’s battery capacity, indicating I could have done 6 to 8 parks on a single charge. In addition all three activations took 5.7 AH from my LiFePO4 battery. The QSO rate was close to one a minute in all three parks, and I was on the air for about 30 minutes at each park. While doing three parks in a row was fun, I’m fairly certain that doing four would have lowered the “fun” factor significantly. In the future I’ll try to do 2 or 3 activations in a day.
The POTA group keeps track of Activation and Hunting activities with a Leaderboard. You can look at it two ways, either by year, or overall. I noted that I am in the top 10% of activators both overall and for 2021. That just says it is fairly easy to make a significant impact even though there are thousands of people participating (9,586 as of today, making 2.3 million contacts)
Today was a glorious weather day here in Rhode Island, so my wife and our yellow lab piled into the van and headed out for three park activations (Lynn and Jaclyn walk the park trails while I jabber on the air). We wound up at East Beach State Park (K-7865), then Kimball Wildlife Management Area (K-7518), and finished the day at Burlingame State Park (K-2871).
All three activations went swimmingly with 20 or more contacts completed in about 20-30 minutes. The parks were only a few miles from each other.
Amazingly enough, three people managed to work me in all three parks, earning themselves a RI-POTA Hat Trick:
I am indebted to everyone who works me during an activation, continuously reaffirming that Amateur Radio is a wonderful hobby. Being able to get outside these past few months has saved my sanity. So thanks to Jason W3AAX and all the POTA administrators, and especially the regional coordinators (a shout-out to my 4-area regional coordinator, Bill Deloach, K4WP, who has processed all of my 30 logs).
I need another radio like a submarine needs a screen door. That said, I couldn’t resist buying a QCX-mini from QRP Labs. This is a $55 partial kit (all SMT devices already on the board), with a $20 case, making a $75 single-band 5 Watt CW Transceiver. It was under $100 including express shipping from the UK.
I’ll keep track of assembly time and any issues I run across. BTW, the photo doesn’t give you an idea of the size. It will fit in the palm of your hand easily and is about 1/2″ thick.
